Paniz Faryousefi made history as the first woman to lead Iran's Tehran Symphony Orchestra since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, conducting sold-out shows Wednesday and Thursday at Vahdat Hall despite long official gender bias in the arts.
Though other Iranian women have led youth ensembles or smaller groups, Faryousefi achieved a major breakthrough.
The violinist, trained at Tehran's Music Conservatory and Armenia's Komitas State Conservatory, drew inspiration from conductors Aram Gharabekian and Stanislav Kochanovsky.
As concertmaster of the Tehran Philharmonic and a composer, she helmed the "Land of Simurgh" program with works by Iranian composers Aftab Darvishi and Golfam Khayam, plus Schumann, Sibelius, and Khachaturian.
"Art belongs to humanity, not to men and women," Faryousefi said after the performances, underscoring the milestone for women artists.
The concerts highlight a cultural flux in Iran.
"Woman, Life, Freedom" protests against the theocracy's mandatory hijab were crushed with deadly force, but further draconian legislation and much enforcement has lapsed as authorities seek to avoid unrest.
Women presence
Apart from Faryousefi, two other women have conducted orchestras in Iran. Nazanin Aghakhani led the Tehran Youth Orchestra in 2014, and Nezhat Amiri directed a 71-member ensemble in Tehran in 2018.
Vienna-born Aghakhani has a history of conducting orchestras in various countries, was invited to Iran in 2011 on the recommendation of Loris Tjeknavorian to lead the Tehran Symphony Orchestra. She was scheduled for four performances but was denied public performance permits.
Tjeknavorian is an Iranian-Armenian composer and conductor who is renowned for symphonies, operas and leading orchestras like the Armenian Philharmonic.
“An American author said: 'Remove the hijab, and you've effectively joined Mossad operations.' I urge all women to consider their faith and country,” Ahmad Khatami said at a prayer gathering on the Islamic holy day of the week.
Khatami went on to say half of those defying the mandatory headscarf need to come back to Shi'ite Islam.
"Unveiled women fall into two groups: adversaries whom the law confronts, and Shi'ite well-wishers who must align with Fatima Camp. I implore all women to prioritize their faith and nation,” Khatami said.
Fatima al-Zahra, daughter of Prophet Muhammad, wife of Ali the first Shiite Imam holds unparalleled status as the only woman in the Prophet's infallible household, making her central to Shiite theology and devotion.
Visible change
Despite mounting threats, civil resistance to the mandatory hijab persists, with many women appearing in public without it to reject the policy.
Enforcement has slackened and a draconian new law on veiling was paused.
While political and espionage arrests have mounted along with executions, authorities have tamped down on veiling as social and economic pressures mount in Iran.
Women and girls in Iran have increasingly defied the mandatory headscarf since the "Woman, Life, Freedom" protest movement, sparked by the death of young Mahsa Amini in morality police custody in 2022.
Critics argue the state’s expanding enforcement apparatus shows that the priority is social control rather than easing economic hardship.
Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei delivered the directive on Friday in the religious city of Qom, warning that foreign adversaries sought to exploit issues such as unveiled women and online activity.
“One manifestation of the enemy’s efforts is in the matter of nudity and lack of hijab, and another is the virtual space,” he said.
He urged officials to avoid amplifying internal disputes. “We must be alert to the enemy’s mischief and not inadvertently play on its field,” he said. “A small domestic issue should not be framed in a way that gives the enemy an opportunity.”
Senior officials call for tougher enforcement
Ejei’s comments align with a series of recent directives by senior Iranian officials favoring stricter enforcement of the mandatory hijab, a policy advanced in recent months with judiciary backing and active support from security institutions and state-aligned media.
Kayhan, a newspaper overseen by a representative of Iran’s supreme leader, wrote on Wednesday that hijab was “the first defensive shield of Islamic identity,” warning that its erosion would open the way for broader cultural decline.
Prosecutors were also obliged to act with seriousness against women who do not observe the compulsory dress code, Prosecutor General Mohammad Movahedi Azad said on Sunday.
Days earlier, Esfahan’s judiciary chief, Asadollah Jafari, called for action against what he described as “norm-breaking behavior.”
More than 80,000 so-called promoters of virtue had been organized to monitor women’s clothing in public spaces, Ruhollah Momen-Nasab, head of Tehran’s headquarters for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice said in October.
Clerics intensify pressure
In Mashhad, senior cleric Ahmad Alamolhoda renewed warnings on Friday, saying unveiled women posed a threat. “We must fight lack of hijab. Today, lack of hijab has reached nudity,” he said. He likened the situation to a house fire, urging officials to intervene directly.
Alamolhoda also criticized domestic streaming platforms, accusing them of exposing young viewers to inappropriate content at a vulnerable age.
Critics argue the state’s expanding enforcement apparatus shows that the priority is social control rather than easing economic hardship.
Despite mounting threats, civil resistance to the mandatory hijab persists, with many women appearing in the public without hijab to reject the policy.
Iran’s academic system had been confined by shifting governance structures that weakened its capacity, Gholamreza Zarifian told an annual assembly of university instructors.
“In the past ten years, 12,000 university professors have left Iran, and 60 percent of them did so in the past four years,” he said.
Vetting pressures
“These days, we lose one university professor every week,” Ebrahim Azadegan of Sharif University of Technology said in an interview with KhabarOnline last month.
The latest wave of departures has sharpened criticism of vetting rules that academics say have disqualified candidates over personal matters.
Karan Abri-Nia, secretary of the Iranian University Professors’ Trade Union, said in late October that at least 1,500 engineering and technical faculty members at leading institutions had emigrated in the past five years. “I see migration as a wound on the body of our universities, one that keeps deepening,” he said.
Between the 2018-19 and 2022-23 academic years, Abri-Nia added, about a quarter of the 6,000 faculty members in core engineering departments at top universities left the country. At the University of Tehran, he said about ten professors in engineering mechanics either took early retirement to continue work abroad or went on sabbatical and did not return.
Broader professional flight
The academic exodus reflects a wider flight of skilled workers, including doctors and nurses seeking opportunities in the United Arab Emirates, Oman and elsewhere. Medical associations in Iran have warned repeatedly of a growing strain on the healthcare system and the risk of future breakdown if departures continue.
Officials have recently authorized passport and immigration police to monitor elite migration in coordination with the National Elites Foundation, which operates under the presidency, a sign of growing concern over the accelerating loss of talent.
The steep decline in faculty numbers points to a structural crisis for Iran’s universities as they face shrinking resources, political constraints and persistent economic pressures.
Average monthly incomes now stand near $200, leaving millions unable to keep pace with food inflation. Many respondents said basic protein disappeared from their tables months ago.
“Our daily cost for five people is about 30,000,000 rials (around $27), not even counting meat, oil or rice,” one respondent said. “Our table has not just shrunk, it has been wiped out,” the message said.
Another described a timeline of disappearing foods: meat long ago, dairy a year ago, chicken six months ago, fruit four months ago. “It costs 1,000,000 rials (about $0.90) every time we buy bread. There is not much distance left until absolute hunger,” the person said.
One self-described employee earning 220,000,000 rials (around $195) a month and renting on a city’s outskirts said survival required queuing for subsidized poultry. “We removed meat from our diet at Nowruz because we were coming up short,” the message said.
Several said long-considered staples – Iranian rice, fish, nuts, fresh fruit and legumes – had become aspirations. “We eat only bread, yogurt and rice from morning to night,” another message said.
Health concerns mounting
In mid-October, domestic outlets reported that roughly 35 percent of recorded deaths were linked to undernutrition. Health ministry estimates say at least 10,000 people die each year from shortages of omega-3 fatty acids, another 10,000 from low fruit and vegetable intake, and about 25,000 from insufficient whole grains.
Shortages extend beyond food. “People are cutting doctor visits and medicine before anything else,” another respondent wrote. “We live on luck alone.”
One family of four said six months had passed since they last bought meat. “Life has become hard. My 16-year-old son left school to work, yet we still cannot cover daily needs,” the message said.
Another wrote that the essentials most families consider the heart of a meal – red meat, chicken and fish – were now out of reach. “If this government continues, the rest will disappear too, whether we like it or not,” the person said.
Many described a shift to cheaper staples. “Everything has been removed from my basket: fruit, dairy, meat, legumes. The only things I can still manage, with difficulty, are Indian rice, eggs and potatoes,” one message said.
Middle-class erosion
Several respondents who once identified with the middle class said they were now buying fruit with difficulty. “We take four apples, some pears, persimmons, cucumbers and oranges – it reaches 20,000,000 rials (around $18). One kilo of meat is 15,000,000 rials (about $13),” a message said, calling the situation “frightening and broken.”
Travel – once a marker of modest stability – has vanished. “Red meat, chicken, fish, clothes and gold have become dreams. Travel is zero,” one person said.
Amid the accounts of vanished foods, one message pressed for solutions rather than surveys. “We need a way out, not a question whose answer we all already know,” the person said.
Independent labor and pensioner groups warned in a joint 21 October statement that worsening living conditions and unanswered demands were pushing more workers, teachers and retirees toward street-level protest. They wrote that daily demonstrations reflected a determination to “win rights and express grievances” despite the economic strain.
The broad concern running through the messages is not only what families can no longer buy, but how long they can endure a decline that has turned routine meals into calculations of survival.
